Buckled up for love
by xfmoon
Summary: Lucy introspection tag to 2x04 The Salem Witch Hunt; breaking our hearts with one word and a seatbelt.


**A/N:** Loved the new episode - despite Jessica - it gave us a lot of heartbreak, which I'm all here for as long as it gets mended at some point. Also, I don't ship Garcy, only as friends.

 **Spoilers:** for everything up to and including 2x04 The Salem Witch Hunt.

 **Disclaimer:** A car is not the Lifeboat, but still, I always buckle up, however that hasn't made me the owner of the rights to Timeless yet.

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"No." The word came out a little too fast and maybe a little frail too. She wouldn't have thought much of it before but it seemed that her being buckled in by someone else, someone that wasn't Wyatt just felt wrong. Like she was breaking some kind of sacred ritual. And Wyatt probably wouldn't have approved of that someone else being Flynn either. But of course, he wasn't there to witness it. She was. And though it hurt she let him do it. If she could have she would have done it herself, but her arm was killing her, and it wasn't like she was doing anything inappropriate, it just felt that way.

This was highly irrational she knew that, and so she forgave him, because he couldn't know, how could he. No one except the time team knew this little routine, and she was pretty sure it wasn't in the journal. If she was going to write that damn book some day she would not put this detail in it, she knew herself that much. And the whole 'if' thing seemed less and less likely now, after all she was already working with Flynn, as the journal predicted.

Maybe there really was no such thing as free will. Look at what happened to that puritan, he still ended up dead even though Rufus didn't shoot him. So, if this was her fate was there really much she could do about it? Did her choices even matter or would the big events - like who lived or died or who you loved or didn't love - happen anyway? Caring about not changing history didn't seem so important in that light, and rightly so she didn't feel one ounce of guilt of having changed the Salem witch trails into the Salem witch revolt. Still time travel logic was giving her a headache and on top of her mother's continued betrayal and her other injury she didn't have the strength to fight with Flynn about something so small as buckling her seatbelt.

This was a whole different kind of heartbreak that she just had to get through. If Rittenhouse thought taking everything away from her could break her they were very wrong. It might not feel like it right now but she really was happy for Wyatt for getting a second chance with his wife, even if it were at her heart's expense. As long as he was happy, she would be happy for him, even if it hurt like nothing she had ever experienced before. He was safe and alive and happy, which was a much better alternative than what she'd lived through during the six weeks she'd been with Rittenhouse.

She had known chemistry and attraction before, but this, this was love. She was certain of that. And she was grateful for having had a chance to experience that, if only for a short while. Knowing how rare it was, she had almost given up on ever finding it herself. Love didn't have to be a lightning bolt from the sky; it could be slow and steady like a light summer rain shower. It was difficult to define the feeling exactly, probably impossible, but for her it had been hope, respect, safety; and just like that the possibilities of something more had evolved into love.

Wyatt was there when they landed and for the briefest of seconds she forgot everything and it looked like he did as well. Their eyes held on to the other's for maybe a beat too long. A strange feeling of relief just by seeing him there started to fill the emptiness she felt. But then she saw Jessica, and just like that the moment was over, before it really had had a chance to begin properly. She froze, her body not cooperating with her rational mind that was telling her to get the hell out of there. And in that moment, she was grateful for Flynn and for him leading her away from it all. Because with all she had been through lately; the let downs, dangers, loss, and heartbreak - she had to be strong and decisive at every turn and in spite of the circumstances. So, having someone to lean on was priceless, even if it was Flynn.

You can't be betrayed by your enemy because you already know that they're up to no good. You can only be betrayed if you trust someone or something, and right now she couldn't even trust her own body to do what was right. She was her own worst enemy, betrayed by her feelings. Flynn had proved on this mission that he wasn't their enemy anymore, if he ever was? Because weren't they doing now exactly what he had been doing before... trying to stop Rittenhouse. The changes to history they made in the process seemed like an unfortunate yet sometimes unavoidable side effect. So, with Wyatt temporarily out of the picture, having a semi-reliable guy like Flynn around would have to do. Now, if she only could get him to _not_ buckle her in again - except in times of ill placed wounds like her current one - this might actually work out just fine.

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 **A/N:** I repeat, I'm not a Garcy shipper, I'm really not. But I don't think he's that bad of a person.

Didn't really think I could write that much about the seatbelt scene, sure I went beyond it a bit, but I'm okay with this.

Saw this post on Tumblr that said: Lucy Preston breaking all our hearts with one word and a seatbelt. Which I think is an accurate description. There was just so much heartbreak going on in this epi. I can't wait for next week.

 _Side note:_ I was going to write 'calm and steady like the river', but that made me think of Disney's Pocahontas; long story short the river is not calm and steady. And as it turns out I was having a hell of a hard time trying to find something else that was. Writing be damned.


End file.
